The members of the Stumpf family, who lived in the village of Altwarenburg in the Saratov Region, knew only too well which kind of a fate they would meet. During the very first days after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War the authorities began to enforce the deportation of German families. Without exception all representatives of the German nationality, who had already been living in Russia for centuries, were outlawed and declared enemies of the people, enemies of the very country they were citizens of.
- It is very hard and painful for me to recall those years, - with these words Georgiy Georgievich Stumpf began to tell us his story. – Nowadays, it is probably difficult to imagine all this torment and suffering we had to go through. I am filly convinced that all Russian Germans were forced to bear incredible humiliations and misery – although this was entirely undeservedly. Thousands of families who were affected by most cruel repressions, were separated from eachother, they were brutally dismembered – in most cases forever.
The eyes of the old man who suffered so much want and distress were filling with tears, and our conversation was interrupted by a short but depressing, sad silence. A little later, having gained back his composure, he tried to tell me, how inexpressibly hard it was to leave the beloved home behind, the place where his grandfathers and great-grandfathers were born, where they had spent all their life, where his brother and his three sisters had grown up and where the young girl had lived, who he would have liked to marry, unless war and displacement had not undone all plans for the future.
However, they were forced to accept an entirely different fate. When the war broke out, the first residents were to leave their villages. Nobody was informed about where they would be taken to and for how long they would stay away. There family was fortunate in a sense, as they were not among the very first exiles. This fact gave them a little time to get prepared for the life of suffering that was in front of them.
His heart is weighed down with sorrow, when Georgiy Georgievich recalls his last meeting with Milia, his first love. That very day she told her chosen one that she was expecting a child. One can imagine the heart-breaking situation that came up, when this fateful inevitability separated them, maybe for a long time. At that time he was not in a position to anticipate the drama that he saw the girl for the last time in his life. Until today, he does not know what kind of fate the young woman and her child were to meet, except for the fact that her family was exiled, as well.
- In October 1941 our family arrived in Taskino, which had been assigned to us as future place of residence. We were received kindly. I have no idea, why the Taskinians did not bear the slightest ill or hatred against us; anyway, they neither excluded us from common village life, nor humiliated us, not even by verbal slender, or ever counted us from among the fascists, who had invaded their country. On the contrary – they helped us to find a job, provided us with bread during the first time, lest we starved. In January 1942 father and I were mobilized into the army.
I remember this was a great honour, a great privilege for us. It meant that they confided in us, when sending us to the front, allowing us to fight for our home-country just like all the other Soviet soldiers did. Having arrived in Abakan, however, we were suddenly accompanied by armed guards and we had the unpleasant feeling that something was wrong. It was the time when my father assumed that they intended to detain us. He was to be right after all; we were sent directly into the labour army.
Our journey took a whole month. We were cooped up in unheauted freight cars chilled to the bone and practically remained without food all along. At one of the little train stations, we managed to get hold of an iron stove. Upon arrival in the Kansk District each of the arrivals was carefully checked by a medical commission, a procedure which was dragging on for three days; they took our finger-prints, as if we were true criminals.
On the camp territory which was surrounded by dozens of kilometers of taiga (abundantly covered with vegetation), there were 13 barracks. More than 80 prisoners were placed in each of them. The barracks were in a dilapidated condition; in automn it was raining through the cracks and in winter these ramshackle huts would not store any heat; nonetheless, the barracks remained their only shelter for a long time.
- We were accompanied by armed guards with watch dogs at every turn. We had to go to work and return back to the barracks in file, in gangs of four men each. As soon as someone left his formation, he was immediately attacked by the guards, who had forewarned us that if we did not stay in file, we would be shot on the spot.
The beggarly food ration and hard labour which surpassed the prisoners’ forces resulted in a multitude of diseases – scurvy, night blindness and dysentery. 12-14 individuals died every day. At once, new prisoners moved up taking the unused spaces in the barracks. At first, the camp was occupied by Germans only, but as from 1944 Letts, Estonians, Kazakhs and other nationalities were deported to this place, as well.
After the end of the war, the authorities began to supply bigger contingents of exiled women to the camp. There was a tendency to create families from among the prisoners, which should then stay in the place as registered permanent residents. However, the number of those who were willing to unite their fates was rather limited. For most of them had already started a family before, and they were imploringly hoping to return to their relatives sooner or later.
The situation of the women detained in camps was much harder and more
humiliating. Apart from hard labour for the timber industry (they were forced to
fell trees), which soon made them feel at the end of their tether, for this kind
of work was conceivably unapt for women,
they were supposed to accept the “favourableness” of the commandant of the camp,
who, every now and then, selected the next object of amusement with ice-cold
cynicism, by taking advantage of his supremacy towards the inmates.
- We were all living with the hope that we would be released soon after our country had captured the victory over Germany. In 1946 I was transferred to another camp, some sub-section of a special camp, and later they took me to Udmurtia. There I received a pass and a special permit, now feeling as a free man again. Although I was not entitled to leave the place but had to go and get registered with the commandant’s office in regular intervals, they at least abolished the armed guards, which had been around at every turn before.
Only in 1950 Georgiy Georgievich returned to Taskino, where he is still living today. He started a family, children were born. He worked on the kolkhoz farm as a carpenter, until he went on pension. He had learned this trade from his father before the war. He has a soft spot for pigeons, the absolute rulers on his little farm-stead. He built a big pigeonry especially for them. In all he is breeding five different races. The birds love their master, for they realize the kindness and warmth he is showing towards them.
- Many people think that pigeons are absolutely useless, that it makes no
sense at all to keep them at home, but I have been having a marked preference
for these birds since childhood.
I owned a pigeonry in our home region, in Altwarenburg, yet. When I returned
from the trudarmy, I started breeding pigeons again at the first opportunity.
Recently, I was on the point of giving up this hobby. But – I just can’t. You
learn lots of good from them; it is not without good reason that pigeons are the
birds of peace and good.
The numberof pigeons on my little farm is now limited to 28. During the past
years, for some reason or other, they did not lay so many eggs. Pigeons also
love their freedom and I often had to shut them away. They are confiding, gentle
birds which accept the people’s presence;
nevertheless, although not in bad faith, but maybe while being in high spirits,
it may happen that those behave cruelly towards them and even hurt them.
Therefore I do not like to let them fly too often. Although the pigeonry is very
spacious, it bears comparison with a cage – and cages do not stand for freedom.
Living without freedom, alas, is a very agonizing thing.
Ten years ago the government passed the law about the rehabilitation of victims of political repression. However, the bureaucratic machinery of our state entaisl new stresses and strains and humiliations of the victims of repressions. In order to finally become rehabilitated, people have to search for years for all kinds of (missing) documents and furnish the authorities with lots of papers, certificates of conformity and confirmations.
Konstantin Richardovich German, who was repressed for political reasons
himself, has been engaged in these problems for many years. He helps people,
among them Georgiy Georgievich Stumpf, to restore the good reputation of his
family. During this time forty families were acknowledged rehabilitated persons
by his assistance, fifteen of them even received a compensation for lost
property (dispropriation). He values this as complete success, for the treatment
of each cases is always accompanied by a high degree of efforts and patience. He
does not recall a single case which dragged on less than two years, in the
course of which it turned out to be imperative to repeatedly force the closed
doors of indifferent bureaucrats open. He does not deal with these problems for
reasons of self-interest; no, he is of the opinion that, no matter how many
years have passed, the restoration of people’s good reputation, the reputation
of sorely afflicted people, who suffered from political repressions,
is an irrevocable, absolute must.
Arranged by S. SVATKOVA
“Banner of labour”, N° 86 (8245), 27.10.2001
(Newspaper edited in Karatus)